High-tech snow days with clear, sunny weather

Back in the day - yes, the day when we had to walk four miles to school, uphill both ways - snow days held a certain mysterious romance.

We'd watch the flakes start to fall the night before and wonder. Would it be enough to win us a get-out-of-jail free card?

We'd strain, still half asleep from the comforts of our covers, to pick up the crackle of the staticky AM radio station playing in the kitchen. Would we hear those magical words?

YES! "No school today in Nicholas County."

My, how times have changed.

Yesterday evening we got not one, but three, robo calls: Due to a weather emergency, all schools in the Silver Valley Unified School District will be canceled Friday. One call went to Dad's cell thousands of miles away triggering a freak-out. "Emergency?! What emergency? What's going on there?"

Well, nothing at the moment other than a bunch of rain, I said. But the forecast says three inches of snow. Plus Big Guy's friend A heard from her weather man that it definitely was going to snow, and she assures Big Guy that her weather man is never wrong, I added.

By 6:30, the Facebook post had triggered a series of questions, many of which were running through my mind.

"I completely understand with snow...but rain!? Seriously?! I would understand if the schools were flooded..." one woman posted.

"I've heard of a snow day but never a 'rain day'!" another added.

"It's just wet & cold-what's the big deal??" said a third.

A teacher jumped in to explain what had happened the previous winter - a freak blizzard that covered the Las Vegas strip in white, closed the post and left many school employees stranded and sleeping on cots. Aside from that, she said, most post school employees commute and a storm that had socked Southern California for days had left many roads dangerous or even impassable.

Big Guy had heard stories of last winter's magical storm and those tales, coupled with A's infallible weather man, had made him a believer.

"We're going to have a snow ball fight and I'm going to hit you in the booty," he grinned. "No, I want to make a snowman."

"We can do both. And we'll have lots of hot cocoa," I said, rapidly becoming a believer as well. Maybe our toboggan from last winter would even get to come out and play on the guy-sized hill behind our house. It would be a good old-fashioned snow day, just like when I was a kid but without the stacticky AM radio.

I set my alarm for super early, so I could finish some work before the onset of fun and frolic. When I ran to the bedroom window at 4, though, there was ... nothing. The landscape was the same sandy brown we'd fallen asleep to the night before. I went back to bed. Bummer. Big Guy's friend needs to fire her weather man.

It's been fairly sunny all morning, but with enough clouds to give the guys hope. "Are those snow clouds?" Big Guy keeps asking. "Those look like snow clouds to me."

Sorry, little love, but at 47 degrees it's way too warm to snow. We'll have to keep our snow-day plans in our hearts and hope that we can implement them some day.

At least, thanks to modern technology, the guys were able to dream their snow day dreams a little longer instead of waking up and straining to hear a crackly AM radio station.

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